It's time to break the patterns that break me
Boop.
I love patterns. They’re pleasing to the eye, and familiar to the soul. They tell me what to expect and when. Like a resolved chord progression or the end of a mystery novel, they’re satisfying.
My love for patterns is what enables me to build and maintain routines and to be effective at my job.
My love for patterns is also what led me to therapy.
Almost a decade ago, I met one of those effortlessly cool people you just want to get to know better. She was funny and fashionable. I wanted to be her friend.
The first time we made plans to spend time together, they fell through at the last minute. She was so sorry, but had to cancel. “No problem at all!” We rescheduled.
The day of our rescheduled plans, she had something come up, and we had to reschedule again. “Things happen!!”
“Things happened” two more times. We eventually made it work, but the next time we tried to make plans, the same “thing happened” again.
Each time we made plans, the rescheduling and canceling continued to the point where I assumed that any plans we made would be canceled at the last minute. But because I wanted to be accepted by her, I perpetuated the pattern: 🟧 🌀 🟧 🌀
I justified the situation with generosity. Her life is busier than mine; she has family responsibilities; whatever came up is objectively more important than our plans.
🟧 🌀
Eventually, even the familiarity of the pattern could not dull my disappointment and—though I’d never admit it—anger.
This is an all-too-common example (we all have misaligned friendships) with an all-too-important lesson: we can’t change people.
I let go of our conceptual relationship. Setting aside my ego, this was easy to do because I only knew her casually. Our lives could continue separately without a notable upset.
What’s harder, and maybe one of the hardest things in life, is recognizing, navigating, and changing our own participation in dysfunctional and even destructive relationship patterns, especially with people whose lives are enmeshed with our own.
I started therapy five years ago during a crisis moment. A particular relationship was compromising my sense of equilibrium, sense of self, and if I believed I deserved it, sense of happiness. I entered therapy with a million dollar question: How do I manage this storied relationship that might never change?
Focusing first on one-off situations to discover what lay underneath, my therapist helped me recognize how each distressful moment in our relationship belonged to the same pattern. After identifying the pattern, we worked on my ability to accept its existence. Once you see a pattern, you know what to expect, when to expect it, and how to endure it.
Over time, it’s become clear to me how this pattern actually influences all of my relationships—with romantic partners, family members, friends, and colleagues. And the common thread between all these relationships? Me. I’m starting to understand why the patterns in my relationships let me down and how I contribute to those patterns.
When and why do I willingly participate in the relationship patterns that don’t serve me? And how do I break these patterns?
This is not an easy quest, and I’m continually working to achieve it. At least one person in my life gives me good practice. She has strong opinions, and whenever our opinions are at odds, I’ve let go of mine to appease her. While she’ll go to lengths to express disagreement and disapproval, I’ll go to lengths to avoid conflict. I find ways to empathize with her emotion and to see life from her eyes, convincing myself that I’ll be okay if I don’t get my way.
Our relationship works because I prioritize her happiness over my needs.
Having experienced the pattern repeatedly, I now have the self-awareness to step back and observe it from afar. I’m able to see how I’m not just part of this pattern, but that I also perpetuate it. I need to redesign my contribution.
Am I okay with how our relationship works? Are there times when my needs should take precedence, no matter the consequence? What are my boundaries?
I recently listened to an episode of We Can Do Hard Things with Laura McKowen. Using the example of her path to sobriety, Laura shares nine truths we need to face in order to address whatever it is in our lives (drinking, codependence, overworking, emotional abuse), that keeps us from feeling the way we want to feel (happy, light, in control of how we experience things).
Each truth is powerful, but the one that struck me was, “#2. It’s your responsibility.” We are not always responsible for our environment, but we are responsible for our experience of the environment, and the choices we can and do make.
Laura explains, “A lot of people confuse obligation and duty with responsibility. I’m so responsible, but I’m so angry. I’m so resentful. I’ve done everything right. I do all the things I’m supposed to do.
That’s not taking responsibility for your experience.
If you are just working so hard to be good and you are doing all kinds of things in your life that aren’t who you actually are or what you actually want, you’re doing them to be good. And you’re calling that responsible, there’s no freedom there.”
Maybe because I’m the first born or because I have immigrant parents or because I was motivated by academic excellence, I routinely mistake “being good” for “taking responsibility.
Laura continues, “As Carl Jung said, what we do not bring into consciousness will come to us as fate.
Things will just keep happening to you. You will keep dating the same narcissist. You will keep having the same interaction with your mother the same dynamics will keep showing up in your relationships, in your life, in every part of your world. Because you are not able or willing to ask yourself what your part is in what’s happening.”
It’s not the patterns that are the problem, but the way we choose to experience and contribute to them. Only we can make the choice to react differently, to set boundaries, and to opt for the outcome that is best for our needs.
If we are to trust Laura McKowen, responsibility leads to freedom every time.
We can’t change other people, and people rarely change a pattern that’s working for them. If we want to feel different, we need to change our own contribution to the patterns in our lives.
Until I break the unsuitable patterns in my relationships, I will always feel unhappy (and disappointed, rejected, unsettled, unsatisfied, and held back).
Over the past few weeks, friends have shared with me their stories about setting boundaries with over-involved in-laws and ending emotionally abusive friendships. In each story, taking responsibility to change a harmful pattern was both the hardest and the most liberating choice. But it was always a choice.
Taking responsibility allows us to live by our own values, not someone else’s. Taking responsibility empowers us to design the patterns that define us. This is my sign, and if you need it, let it be yours too.
We must break our patterns. It is the only way we can put ourselves back together again.
Have you been thinking about this too? Do you have a similar (or different) perspective? Start a conversation with Ro and the Unabridged Ro community or share this letter with a friend.
Enjoyed reading this article. Setting boundaries is very key in ensuring happiness and self-healing.
- Jayashree aunty (Amit/Ashwin's mom)